Following the war in Ukraine, Israel and Egypt suddenly became the most stable partners that Europe has,” said this morning (Tuesday) Lior Shilat, Director General of the Ministry of Energy, at the 19th Energy and Business Conference held at Expo Tel Aviv.
“Since energy has become significant, then the natural gas reserves and its technology have turned Israel into a beleaguered country. In the past year, we have conducted negotiations with each of the countries bordering Israel, except Syria. The energy diplomacy that we led led to tremendous international agreements and contacts – an agreement with Jordan on a desalination plant, on the purchase of electricity from renewable energies, agreements with Egypt on the transfer of natural gas to the European Union, an agreement with Lebanon, whose trigger was energy.
“When we arrived in Cairo to sign an agreement with the European Union and Egypt, the President of the Union said that following the crisis with Ukraine, they realized that they needed to maintain their stable partnership – Israel and Egypt. When were the countries of the Middle East treated as Europe’s stable partner? This indicates more than anything else about our energetic status.”
Regarding the transition to renewable energies, Shilat said: “The transition to renewable energies is gradual, natural gas and fossil fuel will be here, in decreasing quantities, even in the next 25 years, so we need to build a reliable economy that will know how to deal with it. We can reach a goal of 30% Renewable energies in 2030, but this involves 54 policy measures that we identified that need to be done along the way and with a clear statement by the government that this is a national priority.”